


standing on my own two feet

by bravebuttercups



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Comfort/Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-05 01:09:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14032842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravebuttercups/pseuds/bravebuttercups
Summary: Cassian’s used to making people laugh when trying to comfort them, but what can he do when his mate refuses to smile?Nessian comfort oneshot.





	standing on my own two feet

Cassian woke before Nesta did, her muffled whimpers and twitching limbs alerting him to her distress mere seconds after he had felt a pull on their bond, a pull he knew to mean that something was inexplicably  _ wrong _ . He knew better than to reach out to Nesta physically - had learned not to the hard, way, actually, and still had the bruises to prove it - and instead tugged on the mating bond. He did it gently, the first time, and the second, but when his mate remained unresponsive next to him, he _ yanked. _

Nesta sat up with a gasp, her hands flying to her mouth as she tried to choke back her sobs. It pained Cassian to see her like this, hurt him in a way that no amount of battle wounds ever could, but he would be patient. For Nesta, he would be patient.

“I - she - I couldn’t save her.” Nesta’s words came out in pants, her breathing labored as she tried to hold back her tears. He had tried, time and time again, to convince her that it was okay to cry, okay to let go, but his mate was of the stubborn sort.

“Save who? Elain?” Cassian asked, his voice gentle as he dared to place a hand on Nesta’s back. When she didn’t recoil at his touch, he started to rub slow, small circles up and down her spine, comforting her in one of the few ways he knew how - one that he had learned from Rhys’ mother.

Nesta shook her head and choked out a single word: “Feyre.”

It had been Feyre who told him what Nesta had done. How, when Tamlin had taken her and cast a glamour over her family’s minds, it had been Nesta who had resisted, Nesta who had mounted a horse and raced after them into a forest. Nesta who had dared approached the Wall in order to get her younger sister back.

Nesta who, weaponless, had risked her life to save her family.

“Feyre is safe. Elain is safe.  _ You _ are safe.” Cassian repeated this over and over again, the mantra that would draw Nesta out of her nightmare and back into the present, that would hopefully make her realize that she was in their house overlooking the Rainbow, and not in whatever hell her subconscious had plunged her in.

Overlooking the Rainbow, for Feyre, Cassian realized as he watched his mate. To remind her of what she fought for.

A reminder to be strong.

His mate was a warrior, whether she knew it or not. (Cassian would bet that she did.)

It had been a few years since Nesta had (finally) accepted the mating bond, but rarely did she accept being comforted. It was when she did that Cassian truly worried. He was the sort to rely on humor to make his friends laugh, or to act as a punching bag if they needed to knock their demons down with fists. He wasn’t like Mor, or Feyre, like Rhys or even Azriel.

What kind of male didn’t know how to comfort his own mate?

Cassian knew what people thought when they saw him with Nesta, knew the automatic response of the males during meetings, where they would address him instead of her, their eyes flitting over his mate dismissively. They saw a former human girl with the Commander of the Night Court armies, and thought that Cassian was the one who held all of the authority - but oh, how wrong they were. In time, they would learn not to underestimate Nesta, and Cassian, along with the rest of the Inner Circle, would watch with amusement until that day came.

For now, though, he just wanted to be able to do something to make the nightmares stop. Never had he felt so useless.

As Nesta continued to cry and Cassian slowly drew her to him, he shut his eyes tight and tried to channel his friends. He thought of how he, along with everyone else, always insisted that Nesta was strong. They praised how infallible she was, how she had an iron will and a fierce determination, and how those things were the source of her strength. But then he thought of what Rhys had finally admitted to them after he had returned from Under the Mountain: once the battle was over, it was okay to not be strong.

Now if only he could find the words to convey this to Nesta.

But, as was common in their relationship, Nesta surprised him by speaking first.

“You once asked me how I could let Feyre wander into the forest to provide for our family. How could I sit idly by when my malnourished, illiterate sister tried to prevent all of us from dying? Why didn’t I feel the same need to protect her that I did with Elain?”

Cassian tried to protest - he hadn’t known her then, hadn’t know the lengths to which Nesta had gone trying to get Feyre back, but his mate continued speaking.

“She was always the strong one,” Nesta said, her voice quiet but steady as she stared into the darkness of their bedroom. “Feyre, I mean. She still is. I don’t know why everyone keeps insisting that it’s me. This comes naturally to her. She’s a good person, Cassian. Valiant. Kind. Courageous. She took care of us when we weren’t her responsibility. She deserves much better than a sister like me. She deserves an apology.”

“Then you can give her one. You care, Nesta, more than people realize. You deserve to have people see that side of you.”

“It’s not that simple. Any apologies I would make now are pointless. The damage has been done. I can’t give her her childhood or her innocence back, so what good would apologizing do?”

Nesta took a deep, shuddering breath, and Cassian held his tongue.

“You all - you expect me to...I’m not strong like you. Like Feyre. And I have this fear, that if I give in, that if I’m  _ not _ strong and brave and selfless and all of those other annoying qualities you all seem to have, that I won’t…” She trailed off, her words barely a whisper at the end.

It was a struggle for Cassian to finish her sentence. “That you won’t belong?”

Nesta’s almost imperceptible nod was enough to break Cassian’s heart.

“Nesta, look at me.” She did - slowly, hesitantly, but her gaze was unwavering. “I can’t speak for the others, but, more often than not, I am anything but strong. No, listen,” Cassian continued when Nesta tried to correct him, “I’m not. I draw my strength from the others. Without them...I don’t think I would be able to live with all of the terrible things I’ve done. The things I’ve  _ had _ to do.

“Mor has this thing she says - she said it to Feyre, when she first came to Velaris, and I’m willing to bet that she’s tried to say the same thing to you. And knowing you, and how literal you are,” Cassian said, ignoring Nesta’s indignant scoff, “I can tell you right now that not letting the hard days win doesn’t mean what you think it does. It doesn’t mean not letting those days faze you, or walking away unscathed. Winning against the hard days is being knocked down so much that you feel like you can’t get up again, but you do it anyways, because you’re holding out hope for something better.” 

Cassian let out a sigh, daring to brush Nesta’s hair away from her face and relishing in the small act of intimacy she wouldn’t have allowed in the early stages of their relationship. “You don’t have to be strong for us to love you. For  _ me _ to love you. All of us break down, and we let everyone else build us back up again. None of us fight these battles alone. Let me, at least, do the same for you.”

Nesta made a disbelieving sound, doubt evident in her eyes, and said, “You can’t possibly expect to fight my battles for me.”

“We both know that I am well aware that you are perfectly capable of fighting your own battles,” Cassian retorted, rolling his eyes. “What I’m saying is, let me fight with you. You have your own strength, yes, but when it fails - because no one is perfect - I want to help. But you have to let me.”

She stifled her sob, tears rolling down her cheeks, but this time, Nesta reached for Cassian.

“Okay,” she whispered.

-/-

The nightmares came back the very next day. They were usually generous enough to provide Nesta some sort of reprieve before she had to suffer through another, but the Fates had never been kind to her. This time, she lived through something she had only ever heard about, and found herself surrounded by a crowd of strange fae as she was forced to watch her baby sister’s neck crack. 

She was aware of how Rhysand, even while pretending to be a foe, had screamed Feyre’s name and lunged for the she-demon who killed her, but in her nightmare, it was Nesta who cried out and tried to get Feyre to hold on - only she didn’t have a bond for her sister to hold onto. 

_ Nesta. Wake up, please. It’s a nightmare - just a nightmare. _

She reached for the bond, for Cassian, and let him guide her back into consciousness, her cheeks wet with tears as she tried to gain her bearings. Nesta turned to look at her mate, patient and steadfast even in the face of her worst moments - which were, if she was being honest, the majority of her moments - and bade herself to trust him. Trust him with her secrets, her fears, her heart. Trust him the way she had forbidden herself to trust anyone for so long. 

So she told him about her nightmare, and the one from the night before, and even the very first, when it had been Feyre who was dragged to the Cauldron, and who hadn’t been able to reemerge. It was a slow process, with Nesta stumbling over the words and her breaths, but eventually they settled back into silence, and even though Cassian said nothing, she could feel his love and reassurance singing through their bond. She let those feelings call to her, to soothe the aches of her weary soul and soften the edges she had carved to protect herself from the world. And she started to believe, for the first time since Feyre had vanished into Prythian, that she would be able to stand on her own two feet - so long as she had her mate beside her. 

 


End file.
